Aziz Ansari’s new comedy does not operate in the sitcom world. On Master of None, which is currently streaming all 1o episodes on Netflix, you will not find a wacky neighbour, a group of friends that spends every waking moment hanging out together, or an unimaginably large Manhattan apartment. Everyone has a proper job rather than being an architect or magazine editor, those professions that appear far more in network shows than they do in real life. Sure the main character, Dev (Ansari) is an actor – and we need another story about them like David Cameron needs a bacon sandwich – but this show is so real that Dev’s parents are played by Ansari’s actual parents.

It’s a huge change in tone from Ansari’s famous role as the almost obnoxiously energetic Tom Haverford on Parks and Recreation. His role here is much closer to the persona he presents in his standup sets (the last several produced for Netflix) or his book Modern Romance: An Investigation, which was published this summer.

Aziz Ansari's Master of None – watch the first trailer

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On Master of None, which he created with Alan Yang, Ansari is much more sedate, a mood that meshes well with the series’ loosey-goosey format. Each episode is themed around a topic like parents, old people or Indians on TV and in each one, Dev finds himself in a strange or extreme scenario that makes him examine the way he thinks about these issues. On these adventures he has a revolving cast of friends and co-conspiritors, none of whom are simple character tropes and none of the actors are movie-star beautiful (except when Claire Danes stops by for a guest role).

In this respect the show is very reminiscent of HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, which put Larry David in a series of compromising positions and then followed the insufferable ways he and everyone around him end up looking like asses. However, what makes Master of None such a joy to watch, is that it is also the complete opposite of Curb. Even in an episode where Dev sleeps with a woman (Danes) because her husband cuts him in line at an ice cream shop, it has a very humane and heartfelt ending considering the scenario.

In the Seinfeldian wake of David and all his imitators, watching a modern comedy (think Louie, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Veep or Girls) has become an exercise in waiting for something awful to happen, like a zombie leaping out from behind a car on The Walking Dead. Just as a sitcom character gets close to a girlfriend’s grandmother, as Dev does in one episode, you’re bracing yourself for her to die, be a racist or have some sort of bizarre sexual perversion. I felt the same sense here, just waiting for whatever twist was coming to kick me in the gonads. The surprise eventually comes, but its impact is emotional and intellectual rather than visceral.

The episode don’t set out to examine how awful and conceited people are but instead explore the misunderstandings that happen on the way to human connection. If you were to pick one adjective to describe the show, it would be humane. Yes, the show says, sometimes people kind of behave like jerks, but deep down they are generally pretty worthy. Like Seinfeld and its famous “no hugging, no lessons” policy, the episodes don’t have a didactic moral, but the characters are all searching for something meaningful in this sometimes crummy life.

If that makes the show sound treacly or full, it isn’t. There is plenty of absurd humor like Dev’s Skype audition for a role, which he has to do in a coffee shop because the Wi-Fi in his house sucks, or his fitness-minded friend who continues to do burpees while waiting for Dev to finish a conversation with someone else.

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It’s also refreshing to see a show that features so few white people. Sure, they’re around, but the focus is on Dev and his friends, most of whom are people of colour. The best episode is Indians on TV, when Dev and another Desi friend, Ravi (Ravi Patel), both go out for the same sitcom audition only to find out that a network won’t cast two Indian guys on the same show because they’re afraid it will become an “Indian show”. “We’re just the set decoration,” Dev laments. “We’re not doing the main stuff. We’re not fucking the girls and all that stuff.” It is the most insightful, funny and honest episode of television tackling race and popular culture since Blackish pondered “the N-word” earlier this season.

By the end of the episode, Dev has come to some conclusions about what is wrong with the way Hollywood operates and how he can be a real agent of change in the world. It’s not like Bill Cosby sitting his kids down on a bed for a heart-to-heart (which has rather different connotations these days in any case), but Master of None never betrays its kind soul. It is the rarest gem of all: a finely calibrated, amazingly subtle, and totally unique piece of television that everyone can enjoy. Ansari may not think he’s master of anything, but he sure is doing a hell of a lot right here.